This bit of Rifftides revisited is from an earlier encounter with the mortality of someone close. When I posted it, I was executor of the estate of a lifelong friend and influence, the pianist Jack Brownlow, recently profiled by Steve Cerra.
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Respite
Seattle, Washington
November 10, 2007
Preoccupied with death and its aftermath for two weeks, I decided to seek out life, so I went to … [Read more...]

As the year winds down and we attempt to catch up after a rough patch, Rifftides is revisiting posts from the past.
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THE POWER OF MUSIC
Posted December 22, 2005
Musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten, imparting grace, and making the soul of him who is rightly educated … [Read more...]

While the Rifftides staff regroups and copes with family matters, we shall revisit a few posts from the past. This one appeared almost exactly four years ago. It concerns a recording that received far less general attention that it warranted.
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December 30, 2008
THE FILM MUSIC OF RALPH RAINGER
The release of a new CD, The Film Music Of Ralph Rainger, is the occasion for my piece in today's Wall … [Read more...]

It seemed for a few years that jazz on the radio was doomed to isolation on niche FM stations with weak signals and short wavelengths. As rock, pop, rap and hip-hop shouldered aside the attraction of jazz for mass audiences, the music all but disappeared from AM radio.
Then, the internet made it possible for radio stations to stream their programming around the globe. Jim Wilke, whose Jazz Northwest programs we sometimes tell you about in advance, is a veteran jazz broadcaster who long ago … [Read more...]

Profound thanks to the dozens upon dozens of Rifftides readers who sent messages and comments following the death of my brother Dave. Your words are a great comfort. Please understand my failure to respond to you individually.
In the photograph, Dave is arriving at our house for Christmas a few years ago. His obituary is in the hometown newspaper. If you care to read it, click here. Again, thank you all. … [Read more...]

Rifftides is on hold, as explained in the previous post. However, I’m taking a moment for a couple of timely alerts.
Chris Brubeck posted a memoir about life with his father, Dave. Chris’s article is packed with family anecdotes about the patriarch of American music who died on December 5 at age 91. Here’s a sample:
We were really poor in those early days. When we went on the road, we would stay in old hotels that had cavernous closets—most times the closets were the best thing going … [Read more...]

With the following preamble, Rifftides reader and retired Toronto jazz broadcaster Ted O’Reilly called our attention to an innovation in his former profession.
...Hawkins, Basie, Gillespie, Ornette -- all those old guys -- later. Here’s important JAZZ to learn about.
This news release from a Canadian jazz radio station is what caught Mr. O’Reilly’s attention:
DECONSTRUCTING SGT. PEPPER WITH SCOTT FREIMAN
JAZZ.FM91 announces a new pop culture initiative, the … [Read more...]

Following yesterday’s post, blogger Richard Kamins of Hartford, Connecticut, forwarded a Facebook message from one of his readers, whose name is Sarah Lee. The video that accompanies the message is of Ana Grace and her brother Isaiah. The 6-year-old daughter of saxophonist Jimmy Greene was one of 26 people shot and killed in Friday’s school massacre in Newtown, Connecticut.
♥RIP Ana Grace Márquez-Greene...Ana's mom Nelba was part of my masters program. They just recently moved to the … [Read more...]

Among the 20 elementary school children killed in Friday’s mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, was Ana Greene, the 6-year-old daughter of saxophonist Jimmy Greene. She is on the right in the photograph with her father, her mother Nelba Marquez-Greene and her brother Isaiah, also a student at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Isaiah is reported unharmed. Six adults also died in the onslaught.
A relative said that the Greenes moved to Newtown last summer after Greene accepted a teaching … [Read more...]

On January 14, the pioneering Latin jazz artist Eddie Palmieri will be among those honored by the National Endowment for the Arts as 2013 NEA Jazz Masters. The others are pianist, singer and songwriter Mose Allison; alto saxophonist Lou Donaldson; Owner Lorraine Gordon of New York’s Village Vanguard; and writer A. B. Spellman. Tonight and tomorrow night, Palmieri is being recognized by Jazz at Lincoln Center in concerts reprising the 76-year-old pianist’s career. From the JALC announcement: … [Read more...]

On his New England Public Radio blog, Tom Reney's new post on Charlie Parker includes Lee Konitz material for which he credits Rifftides. I thank Tom, but I thank him more for including a clip of Lee Konitz talking about what it was like to work and travel with Bird in their mutual Stan Kenton days of the 1950s. To hear Konitz on Parker, go here. The clip is at the end of the piece. … [Read more...]

Journalist and occasional Rifftides commenter Ken Dryden (pictured) works nationally and lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Among other activities, he conducts a radio program. Mr. Dryden sent an alert to a special edition of his show remembering Dave Brubeck. If you are one of the unfortunate millions who do not live within broadcast earshot of Chattanooga, there’s good news; Ken’s show will be streamed tomorrow evening on the web. Here is his announcement.
Please join me for Dziekuje, … [Read more...]

With Dave Brubeck’s passing, interesting bits of arcana about his life and music are rising to the surface. BBC Radio 4 replayed a portion of an interview from 2000 on the network’s Front Row program with John Wilson. Brubeck tells Wilson about the role of vitamin B-6 in saving his hands and the unusual use of a bungee cord in his exercise routine. He illustrates polytonality by playing a bit of Duke Ellington's “Things Ain’t What They Used To Be” in C and E-flat, simultaneously. To hear the … [Read more...]

There's a way of playing safe, there's a way of using tricks and there's the way I like to play, which is dangerously, where you're going to take a chance on making mistakes in order to create something you haven't created before.
I'm always hoping for the nights that are inspired, where you almost have an out-of-body experience.
Damn it, when I'm bombastic, I have my reasons. I want to be bombastic: take it or leave it
(Photo of Dave Brubeck at the Stockholm Jazz Festival by … [Read more...]

There is no guarantee that a great artist will be an admirable person. Many sublimely gifted musicians, painters, sculptors, writers and actors fail as human beings. Dave Brubeck was on the positive end of the scale. Among the dozens, perhaps hundreds, of obituaries and remembrances of Brubeck that have emerged since his death yesterday morning, a thread becomes clear: those who knew him emphasize that his extraordinary musicianship went hand in hand with kindness, generosity, humor and concern … [Read more...]

The Columbia University radio station WKCR is playing Brubeck recordings around the clock and will until 9:00 EST tonight. To hear the station, click here, then on one of the connecting links in the WKCR site’s upper right corner.
It is impossible to individually thank the Rifftides readers who have sent comments about Dave Brubeck's passing; there are too many of you. As the comments come in, we post them with thanks to all.
More later on Brubeck. … [Read more...]

Dave Brubeck died this morning. He would have celebrated his 92nd birthday tomorrow. Russell Gloyd, Brubeck’s manager and conductor of the pianist and composer’s extended orchestral works, said that Brubeck suffered cardiac arrest. In fragile health for several years, he was being driven from his home in Wilton Connecticut to an appointment with his heart doctor in nearby Norwalk.
For a comprehensive obituary tracing the career that made Brubeck one of the few jazz artists to achieve mass … [Read more...]

If you are yearning for Christmas music, it isn’t hard to find. Walk into a supermarket, park at a service station pump or step into an elevator. Whether the stuff piped into commercial establishments suits your taste is beside the point; they give you no choice. This weekend, Jim Wilke won’t give you a choice, either, but considering the proclivities of Rifftides readers, his selections are more likely to meet your criteria than those of the lowest-common-denominator marketers who program … [Read more...]

The vacation is over. I’m getting back into some kind of routine, if not yet what could be called a groove. Before that happens, I’m hitting the road again to spend a bit of time with my brother, who is less than well. In the meantime, here’s a followup to a post that attracted considerable comment.
The item about Paul Desmond’s 88th birthday included a link to a track called “Pilgrim’s Progress” from a 1956 Dave Brubeck Quartet concert recording. The piece is a close relative of “Audrey,” … [Read more...]

Doug Ramsey

Doug is a recipient of the lifetime achievement award of the Jazz Journalists Association. He lives in the Pacific Northwest, where he settled following a career in print and broadcast journalism in cities including New York, New Orleans, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, San Antonio, Cleveland and Washington, DC. His writing about jazz has paralleled his life in journalism... [Read More]

Rifftides

A winner of the Blog Of The Year award of the international Jazz Journalists Association. Rifftides is founded on Doug's conviction that musicians and listeners who embrace and understand jazz have interests that run deep, wide and beyond jazz. Music is its principal concern, but the blog reaches past... Read More...

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Doug’s Picks

Jim McNeely, The Frankfurt Radio Big Band, Barefoot Dances and Other Visions (Planet Arts) McNeely fortifies his position in the upper echelon of jazz arrangers in this set of new pieces for the formidable Frankfurt Radio Big Band. The album begins with his tribute to the late Bob Brookmeyer, “Bob’s Here.” Despite the dedication to […]

Lilian Terry, Dizzy Duke Brother Ray And Friends (Illinois) Lilian Terry’s book is full of anecdotes about her friendships with the musicians mentioned in the title—and dozens of others. Enjoying modest renown in Europe for her singing, Ms. Terry has also been involved in radio and television broadcasting and is a cofounder of the European […]

Oscar Peterson Plays (Verve) In this five-CD reissue, the formidable pianist plays pieces by ten composers who dominated American popular music for decades. Peterson had bassist Ray Brown and guitarist Barney Kessel, succeeded by Herb Ellis. It’s the trio that made Peterson famous with Jazz At The Philharmonic and–by way of the 10 albums reproduced […]

The DIVA Jazz Orchestra 25th Anniversary Project (ArtistShare) It has been a quarter of a century since Buddy Rich’s manager and relief drummer Stanley Kay found himself conducting a band whose drummer was young Sherrie Maricle. Intrigued by her playing, Kay set out to find whether there were other women jazz musicians of comparable talent. […]

Keith Jarrett, Gary Peacock, Jack DeJohnette, After The Fall (ECM) In 1998 Keith Jarrett was emerging from a siege of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome that had sidelined him for two years. As he felt better, he was uncertain how completely his piano skill and endurance had returned. He decided to test himself. He gathered his longtime […]

Gerhard Kubik, Jazz Transatlantic, Vol. I and Vol. II (University Press of Mississippi) The first volume of Kubik’s work is subtitled, “The African Undercurrent in Twentieth–Century Jazz Culture;” the second, “Jazz Derivatives and Developments in Twentieth-Century Africa.” The descriptions indicate the depth and scope of the Austrian ethnomusicologist’s research, which has taken him to Africa […]